and serene overhead, but she already
perceived the gathering clouds, she already heard the mutterings of the
storm that was soon, and this time forever, to hurl the emperor's throne
to the ground. She knew that a day would suddenly come when all this
brightness would grow dim, and when all those who now bowed so humbly
before him, would turn from him again--a day when they would deny and
desert the emperor as they had already done once before, and that, from
that day on, the present period of grandeur would be accounted to her as
a debt. But this knowledge caused her neither anxiety nor embarrassment.

The emperor was once more there; he was the lord and father left her by
her mother Josephine, and it was her duty and desire to be true and
obedient to him as long as she lived.

The sun still shone lustrously over the restored empire, and in the
parlors of Queen Hortense, where the diplomats, statesmen, artists, and
all the notables of the empire were in the habit of assembling, gayety
reigned supreme. There music and literature were discussed, and homage
done to all the fine arts.

Benjamin Constant, who had with great rapidity transformed himself from
an enthusiastic royalist into an imperial state-councillor, came to the
queen's parlors and regaled her guests by reading to them his romance
Adolphe; and Metternich, the Austrian ambassador seemed to have no other
destiny than to amuse the queen and the circle of ladies assembled
around them, and to invent new social games for their entertainment.

Metternich knew how to bring thousands of charming little frivolities
into fashion; he taught the ladies the charming and poetic language of
flowers, and made it a symbolic means of conversation and correspondence
in the queen's circle. He also, to the great delig